Chapter 10: Commandant Drevka Enters the Story

Tomak talked for a long time.

He talked about the trader's hands — broad, soft-palmed, with a guild seal ring on the left index finger, the kind that left a brand in soft wax when pressed. He talked about the road the man had come in on, the eastern fork, in dry weather, before the last harvest failed, which put it in the first week of Midsummer three years back. He talked about what the man had called himself — Verak, just Verak, no family name, which on the Continent meant either poverty or deliberate erasure, and this man had not looked poor. He talked about the offer — framed as a service, Tomak kept insisting on that word, a service, as if the framing still mattered. The boundary stones were old infrastructure, Verak had said. Old debts, old geometry. All Tomak had to do was add his name to an existing arrangement, and the guild would look away from the grain assessment irregularities for another three seasons. Simple accounting. No one would be harmed.

Serafka wrote all of it down without comment, which was more frightening than if she'd said something.